World Class is a fed that really hasn’t gotten much love here on the blog but I just recently acquired the first four Parade of Champions shows so I fully intend on looking at those in depth at a later date. I chose this one because it’s the waning days of World Class and there’s bound to be some odd bouts and pairings. All four men in the opener came across as pretty generic heels and faces, as they are listed respectively above. Victory was the only one not donning a beard and it made me want to go buy a faux Matisyahu beard and travel back in time to give it to him. Borne seemed like the only one who was garnering a reaction, despite looking like a bearded prairie dog. The heels took some headers into the scaffolding and did some decent selling for them. It needs to be noted that this is being held in the massive Texas Stadium, where the Cowboys play, and compared to a few years before this, there’s maybe a few thousand people there (and that’s being generous) and tumbleweeds were blowing through the empty parts of the stadium. Junior danced a jig to the ring and fumbled around with the Grappler for a few minutes in a match that really didn’t do anything for me. I had a random thought pop in my head during the match about why all wrestling hillbillies wear overalls and wrestle barefoot. Just a quick thought. Brody and Swenson had the bout of the show for me. They starting slugging it out early and trading some stiff blows. The only other time I saw Swenson work was in WCW in that ultra-shitty Tower of Doom match at Uncensored ’96 and to be honest, he didn’t impress me. Here, however, he’s a stiff, pumped up monster. Brody bleeds early and they brawl all over the corral area, on top of the announce table, and then start swinging chairs at each other. A fun wild brawl of a match.

I’ve never really been a fan of scaffold matches and this match is pretty much the textbook standard. All six men climb up the scaffolding and proceed to do very little, if anything at all once they arrive at the top. The RPMs were shit as always and Embry didn’t do much to help their cause. There were some decent teases and Embry ended up being the guy to take the bump, although the theatrical way he did the landing was kinda iffy. I’m going to award a point for the actual bout and a point for Embry being the only dude out of the six brave enough to take the plunge. Brooks and Doll had a uniformly decent match which actually surprised me by its placement on the card. Doll had on tights that were very similar to the RPMs and Brooks was your basic Texas big man. I thought they worked well together with Brooks taking a couple of face-plants into the scaffolding supports. Madril’s vocal selling was a pleasant treat. It’s not every day you get someone doing that … in Spanish no less! I remember clearly Madril yelling “Aye-yay-yay” every time Mascaras would apply an armlock of some kind. Always watching Mascaras in action is a treat and it was clear he could still put forth a decent effort. Madril’s bushy mustache made me think that could defintely be a long lost Mario Brother, should they ever decide to take another stab at the film.

The final three bouts really didn’t have much weight to them, although Abdullah was rather heavy. This Eli cat I’ve never seen before and I’m still researching to find out if he’s been in any other feds before or since. His biker get up was an interesting pairing with the Sudanese sultan Abdullah. Jack was supposedly Bruiser Brody under a mask and the whole story behind the match was Gary Hart claiming that Brody was the masked man and had come back illegally since he had lost a Loser Leaves Texas match to Abdullah the year before. It was actually quite obvious to me that Jack was Brody since blood started seeping through the mask halfway through the bout and Brody had been busted open in the match against Jeep Swenson earlier on. As for Jack’s partner, Huber, he was portrayed as an all-American union worker, although they never specified which particular union. There was some decent brawling during the bout but in the end Jack and Huber won the bout, setting up the Jack/Hart bout that was nothing but a pile of shit. In really the only noteworthy thing was Jack ripping off Gary Hart’s shirt. Closing out the show was an interesting matchup, at least on paper. Some people might remember Nord from his stint in the WWF as the Berzerker. Kevin was trying to do his best to keep the match interesting but in the end it just fell apart. It seemed to me that Nord wouldn’t be given the title and thus, your winner was pretty obvious. As a whole, I can’t recommend this show. If you want to check out something, find the Brody match, otherwise, forget everything else.